Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Anjem Choudary Finally Convicted After 20 Years Of Jihadism For Recruiting For And Swearing Allegiance To ISIS
Anjem Choudary Finally Convicted After 20 Years Of Jihadism For Recruiting For And Swearing Allegiance To ISIS
Sentenced To Five And A Half Years In Prison - Shouts "Allahu Akbar" After Verdict
August 16, 2016
One of the UK's most notorious radical clerics has been convicted of inviting others to support the so-called Islamic State, it can now be reported.
Police said Anjem Choudary, 49, had stayed "just within the law" for years, but was arrested in 2014 after pledging allegiance to the militant group.
Many people tried for serious terror offences were influenced by his lectures and speeches, police said.
Choudary was convicted alongside confidant Mohammed Mizanur Rahman.
Radical cleric Anjem Choudary guilty of inviting IS support
Counter-terrorism chiefs have spent almost 20 years trying to bring Choudary, a father of five, to trial, blaming him, and the proscribed organisations which he helped to run, for radicalising young men and women.
Both men were charged with one offence of inviting support for IS - which is contrary to section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 - between 29 June 2014 and 6 March 2015.
The verdict on the two defendants was delivered on 28 July, but can only be reported now following the conclusion of a separate trial at the Old Bailey of another group of men for a similar offence.
How Anjem Choudary's mouth was finally shut
The trial heard how the men decided in the summer of 2014 that the group then known as Isis [Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham/the Levant] had formed a "Khilafah", or Islamic state, that demanded the obedience and support of Muslims.
'Turning point'
They then invited others to support IS through speeches and announced their own oath of allegiance to its leader.
The oath of allegiance was a "turning point" which meant they could be put on trial, the Met Police said.
Choudary was once the spokesman for al-Muhajiroun, an organisation that can be linked to dozens of terrorism suspects.
Its leader Omar Bakri Muhammad fled the UK after the London suicide bombings on 7 July 2005, and over the years since, Choudary has become one of the most influential radical Islamists in Europe and a string of his followers have either left the UK to fight in Syria or tried to do so.
The court heard that in one speech in March 2013 Choudary made it clear that he wanted the Muslim faith to "dominate the whole world".
"Next time when your child is at school and the teacher says 'What do you want when you grow up? What is your ambition?', they should say 'To dominate the whole world by Islam, including Britain - that is my ambition'," he said.
Denounce execution
When IS announced a "Khilafah" - an Islamic state - in June 2014, the court heard that Choudary held a meeting with his closest aides at a curry house in east London.
Before accepting the "Khilafah" was legitimate, the jury heard he consulted his "spiritual guide" Omar Bakri Mohammed, who is currently in jail in Lebanon.
On 7 July 2014, the men's names appeared alongside Rahman's on the oath, which stated the al-Muhajiroun had "affirmed" the legitimacy of the "proclaimed Islamic Caliphate State".
During his trial Choudary also refused to denounce the execution of journalist James Foley by Mohammed Emwazi, nicknamed Jihadi John, in Syria in 2014.
"If you took an objective view there are circumstances where someone could be punished," he told the jury...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37098751
'He liked playing games'
By BBC home affairs correspondent Dominic Casciani
The flag of Islam will fly over Downing Street, was his favourite prediction, followed by some kind of rhetorical flourish: "The Muslims are rising to establish the Sharia... Pakistan, Afghanistan and perhaps, my dear Muslims, Londonistan."
He would greet the journalists with a smile, and some guile, dressed up as charm.
He liked playing games. It gave him a sense that he was winning.
Except it wasn't a game. The evidence now shows that Anjem Choudary is one of the most dangerous men in Britain. Not a bomb-maker. Not a facilitator. But an ideologue, a thinker, who encouraged others not to stop and think for themselves before they turned to violence to implement their shared worldview...
How Anjem Choudary's mouth was finally shut
MIM called for the arrest of Choudary and Bakri in 2005.
Arrest Omar Bakri & Anjem Choudary now !
Al Muhajiroun leaders urged British Muslims to "kill and be killed" for Islam
Al Muhajiroun deputy Choudary : "it is an obligation for every Muslim to prepare themselves physically and mentally"
July 10, 2005
MIM: Note that Al Muhajiroun deputy Anjem Choudary came to the United States in 2000 at he invitation of the head of Al Muhajiroun spokesman Kamran Bokhari who ran the Muslim Student Association at Southwest Missouri State University. The University even subsidised the forum at which he appeared. While at SMSU Bokhari gave an interview where he referred to Bin Laden as being a 'scapegoat' for the US and called the Founding Fathers 'terrorists'.
Incredibly, Pakistani born Bokhari is now working as a strategic analyst at Strafor -Strategic Forecasting Inc.run by George Friedman, who has said that he is glad to have Bokhari as an employee .
Bokhari is affectionately referred to as Stratfor's "in house Jihadi".
In 1996 Bokhari spoke in London at a rally held by Al Muhajiroun .
Choudary and Bakri were also there.
Nearly a decade later an article stated that ..."
"Mr. Bakri defended the March 2004 Madrid train bombing, and said that British Muslims should "kill and be killed" for Islam..."
"....During an interview earlier this year at a McDonald's in East London, Mr. Choudhary predicted there was a very high risk of a terror operation happening in the coming months.
"Someone will take it into their own hands," he said. "I think it is just a matter of time.
"The Muslim community is under siege ... and it is an obligation for every Muslim to prepare themselves mentally and physically for any outcome and eventuality," he said.
http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050709-093125-8755r
London's Islamists unusually mum
By Seth Rosen
The Washington Times
Published July 9, 2005
WASHINGTON -- London's notoriously outspoken Islamists, a media-savvy faction who have publicly praised the September 11 hijackers and called for Islamic law in Britain, have fallen unusually silent since Thursday's rush-hour attack on commuters.
Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed, the radical cleric known for giving his cell phone number to reporters, did not answer yesterday or the previous day.
The Web site of the sheik's followers was offline, and Anjem Choudhary, his top assistant, refused to comment on the blasts that left scores dead.
In contrast, Muslim clerics and residents of London condemned the bombings without reservation, including one of Mr. Bakri's supporters.
"My reaction is the same as the British public -- it is an act of terrorism and I'm deeply saddened," said Abu Bakar Siddique. "Many innocents lives were lost and many Muslims died."
In his lectures and interviews, Mr. Bakri often walks a fine line between the right to preach and the criminal offense of incitement of violence.
He has repeatedly called the September 11 hijackers "magnificent," and in Internet sermons, as reported by the Times of London, he implores Muslims to fulfill their "duty" of jihad and to support the mujahideen abroad.
Mr. Bakri defended the March 2004 Madrid train bombing, and said that British Muslims should "kill and be killed" for Islam.
To his young supporters, he provides religious guidance and advises them on how to survive in what they perceive as a corrupt and racist society.
His detractors say that behind the cryptic language is an extremist whose incendiary sermons radicalize disenchanted youth.
"Do they think they can continue in this anarchism without paying the price?" Mr. Bakri asked more than 60 men who filled a community center in East London in March. No more than a handful were over 25.
The Syrian-born Mr. Bakri was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1986 for his inflammatory preaching and involvement in the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. He eventually settled in London.
He rose to notoriety during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, when he said Prime Minister John Major would be a legitimate target for assassination once on Muslim soil. His public invective became too much for the Hizb ut-Tahrir leadership, and in 1996 he resigned and formed Al-Muhajiroun.
Al-Muhajiroun disbanded in October 2004, amid a spate of public criticism and heightened scrutiny by British authorities, even though the sheik has continued to preach.
During an interview earlier this year at a McDonald's in East London, Mr. Choudhary predicted there was a very high risk of a terror operation happening in the coming months.
"Someone will take it into their own hands," he said. "I think it is just a matter of time.
"The Muslim community is under siege ... and it is an obligation for every Muslim to prepare themselves mentally and physically for any outcome and eventuality," he said.
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http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=london3beila%2Ehtm
Now Is The Time To Move Against The Islamists!
Now Is The Time To Move Against The Islamists!
By Beila Rabinowitz, Special to PipeLineNews
July 7, 2005 - Osceola County, FLA - PipeLineNews - The terror attacks which the British government had stated were inevitable have finally taken place; as the authorities have pointed out, there may be more to come.
What commentators have so far failed to take note of, was that viable threats were already there before the attack.
They have been there, in some cases for years.
As recently as two months ago, Omar Bakri Mohammed, the head of the al-Qaeda support group Al Muhajiroun, exhorted his followers to wage jihad against the UK.
"...Muslims living in Britain are facing two choices; either to migrate or to join the jihad…And I declare we should ourselves join the global Islamic camp against the global crusade camp…the response from the Muslims will be horrendous if the British government continues in the way it treats Muslims," he said, adding that suicide bombings were a possibility.
Bakri is still a free man in the UK, and though he "officially disbanded" his group at the same time he urged them to go "freelance."
It is highly probable to speculate that members of Al Muhajiroun will have heeded Bakri's call to engage in jihad and be found to have been involved in today's terrorist attacks.
Bakri called on Muslims to form a new coalition united behind al-Qaeda with Osama Bin Laden as their leader. This jihadi group would replace Al-Muhajiroun, which is no longer needed, he said. By dissolving such parties the Muslim community will have to come together, and as the judge of the Sharia court in Britain, he is the one to unite them, he added.
Though these developments were reported in the media neither Bakri nor his followers are in prison.
To make matters worse, supporters of groups such as Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Al Muhajiroun have been afforded a quasi-diplomatic status in Britain.
One of those groups, the Muslim Council of Britain is a carbon copy of the American Islamist lobby, Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR].
The Muslim Council of Britain is al-Qaeda. Yet the Muslim Council's Iqbal Sacranie, was knighted by the Queen last week.
In 1996 Iqbal Sacranie who was then a spokesman for the U.K. Committee on Islamic Affairs, pushed for the entry of Bin Laden and other terrorists into the UK on the grounds that "they were Muslim scholars." He also threatened leaders of the UK Jewish Community who were attempting to get Al Muhajiroun's Rally for Revival cancelled.
"The Board of Deputies of British Jews should seriously consider what action they take on this matter because of the detrimental effect on community relations which could result. Taking a hostile view towards scholars who wish to come to this country to present their points of view at a conference will not serve good community relations..." - The Jewish Chronicle (30.08.96)
Taking advantage of the UK's multicultural idiocy, the terror supporters in the UK are in fact, being regarded as 'mainstream' and respected representatives of the Muslim community.
The only way in which future attacks can be thwarted is if the public and law enforcement will face the fact that in reality, there are fewer moderate Muslims than one might hope for and that many Muslim organizations have proven ties to terror related entities.
In short, a readiness to identify the enemy and call it by its name is the conditione sine qua non for fighting terrorism.
The people who are behind these organizations do not make a secret of where their loyalties lie and their true agendas.
Terrorists rightly saw Britain as a safe haven more then a decade ago. It has been speculated that the British did not take action against them in the hope that Muslims would regard themselves as "having a covenant of peace" with the UK and not attack their "host" country.
The UK government's failure to realize that the covenant of peace was contingent on total submission and has resulted in the carnage we have seen today.
The question remains of how many more lives will be lost until the UK takes preemptive action to give credibility to the words of Prime Minister Tony Blair - who stated that "freedom from terrorism is the greatest civil liberty."
Neither civilization nor liberty can coexist with radical Islam. There can be no civil rights for people who aid and abet terrorists.
Islamists have taken the Clausewitz maxim of "diplomacy is a continuation of war by another means" and turned it into "diplomacy is the Trojan Horse of jihad"
In his book "Infiltration" Paul Sperry stated that we can only defeat terrorism if we stop hacking at the branches and start striking at the roots.
This means shutting down offending mosques and Islamic Centers and arresting those who openly declare their intent to perpetrate attacks, or who have undergone training abroad.
Today's attacks stem from a failure to identify and move against the enemy and by rewarding the terror-supporting fifth columnists.
The fight against radical Islam is a life and death struggle, unless it is waged with at least as much determination as the jihadists have shown, the West will commit politically correct suicide by surrendering to their deception.
http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/767
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Radical Islamic Cleric Jailed In Britain
9/6/16
Radical cleric Anjem Choudary, long a thorn in the side of British authorities, was jailed in London Tuesday for five-and-a-half years after being convicted of encouraging support for Islamic
State (ISIS) jihadists.
Supporters of the 49-year-old and his co-defendant Mohammed Mizanur Rahman - who received the same sentence - shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) from the public gallery as the judge announced his decision, according to an AFP journalist.
Judge Timothy Holroyde, in the ruling handed down at the Old Bailey court, said Choudary was "calculating and dangerous" and had shown no remorse.
Dressed in a white robe, Choudary showed no emotion as the sentence was passed.
"A significant proportion of those listening to your words would be impressionable persons looking to you for guidance on how to act," said the judge.
Commander Dean Haydon, Head of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command, said the men "certainly had an influence in radicalizing others, poisoning the mind of vulnerable people in the communities.
"They were certainly in contact with terrorists overseas," he added outside court.
A jury had convicted both men in July.
Choudary is the former head in Britain of Islam4UK or al-Muhajiroun, a now-banned group co-founded by Omar Bakri Muhammad that called for the full implementation of Sharia Islamic law in Britain.
For two decades, the former lawyer, who is of Pakistani descent, managed to stay on the right side of the law, becoming Britain's most prominent radical preacher.
Among those radicalised by Muhajiroun were the suicide bombers who killed 52 people on London's public transport system in July 2005, and the men who murdered soldier Lee Rigby in the capital in 2013, police say.
'Spokesman for extremists'
The court heard that Choudary had broadcast speeches recognising Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the leader of the Islamic caliphate.
It also emerged that Choudary and Rahman pledged their allegiance to ISIS using Mohammed Fachry, a convicted terrorist, to publish the oath that had been signed off by Choudary, on an Indonesian website.
Police chief Haydon said both men had managed to stay "just within the law for many years", a source of frustration for law enforcement agencies.
"We have watched Choudary developing a media career as spokesman for the extremists, saying the most distasteful of comments, but without crossing the criminal threshold," he added.
"Their recent speeches and the oath of allegiance were a turning point for the police - at last we had the evidence that they had stepped over the line and we could prove they were actively encouraging support for ISIS."
Choudary and Rahman were arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command on September 25, 2014.
Choudary, a father-of-five, previously hit the headlines for organizing a pro-Osama bin Laden event in London in 2011.
He also belonged to a group that burned poppies, the symbol of remembrance for deaths in war, during an Armistice Day protest in the British capital in 2010.
In a 2014 interview with AFP, Choudary called on western journalists, civilians and troops in "Muslim countries" to "completely withdraw and allow us to implement the Sharia."
Arutz Sheva Staff contributed to this report
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/217415
How to Lose a Civilization: 5 Year Sentence For UK ISIS Preacher Anjem Choudary
September 8, 2016 – San Francisco, CA – PipeLineNews.org – Anjem Choudary, a supremely dangerous and hateful British Islamic preacher who has dedicated his life to promoting jihad - after nearly a year of incarceration - has finally had his day in court…
Earlier this week the imam was convicted of giving aid and comfort to ISIS, having pledged his loyalty [the bayat] to the rapacious Islamic group.
CNN's view on the matter:
"He was pictured at a protest withMichael Adebolajo, later convicted of the violent murder of British soldier Lee Rigby, and he was linked to Siddhartha Dhar, suspected by authorities of replacing Jihadi John as ISIS executioner.
Too old really to be of much use in actual kinetic warfare, Choudary instead stepped up his subversive/revolutionary Islamic activities, noting that, "Sometimes the propaganda and the verbal jihad is even stronger than the jihad of the sword…" [source, Bryony Jones, Britain's 'most hated man,' Anjem Choudary, jailed for ISIS support ]
Unfortunately, he will only serve about 5 years behind bars. During that time he will undoubtedly use his considerable skills to recruit ISIS mujahideen drawing from the dregs of British society, many of whom are Muslim making them prime targets for such a message.
To someone like Choudary putting him in a closed institutional setting with a genuinely captive audience is akin to giving a child the keys to the candy store. The man is smart, a gifted manipulator, thoroughly unapologetic and has the type of street cred that will naturally draw criminal types to him.
Easy pickings…
Choudary, of Pakistani lineage though born in Britain, is probably the most well known, influential supporter of Islamic terrorism that the UK has yet produced. For the last30 years he has tirelessly spread the virulent ideology of Islamic jihad…at which he has been quite successful. For example, in the late 1980s he co-founded [along with Omar Bakri Muhammed, who fled the country to Lebanon] the now banned terror organization Al-Muhajiroun and then its spinoff, Islam4UK [now also banned].
Choudary represent a clear and present danger to the UK since his ties to the Sunni/Wahhabist/Salafist terror network are numerous and beyond question.
According to Discover the Networks:
"Choudary in 1999 was chief recruiter in Great Britain for the International Islamic Front (IIF), a group persuading and assisting young British Muslims to undergo "guns and live ammunition" combat training and then go overseas to fight Jihad ("Holy War") in Chechnya and the Balkans. The head and chief sponsor of IIF in England was the founder of Al Muhajiroun,Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad. Osama bin Laden in 1998 issued a fatwa that declared it a Muslim's "individual duty" to kill Americans and he created a new organization called the International (or World) Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders. Sheikh Bakri Mohammad described himself as the head of the "political wing" of IIF with no "structural link" to bin Laden, according to the India newspaper Indian Express, but the Sheikh acknowledged that "the military wing of the International Islamic Front is run by Osama bin Laden." [source, Anjem Choudary, Discover the Networks]
While finally holding Choudary to account is commendable, considering the nature of his offenses – providing aid and comfort - to a group which has lifted sadism to an art-form, his sentence is a parody of jurisprudence.
Pledging allegiance to ISIS means something, it's an act of war. As a result Choudary should be treated as an irregular operating clandestinely behind "enemy" lines, an insurgent guerilla, to whom the strictures of the Geneva Convention have no applicability…he being a terrorist.
Britain long ago gave up any pretense of real justice when it not only banned the death penalty but took the extra step of proscribing extraditing prisoners to countries which still believe in the eye-for-an-eye-tooth-for-a-tooth approach, oddly many of which are Middle Eastern Shari'a theocracies.
Though a death sentence, quickly and brutally administered…hanging or the firing squad would be our preference [this rightly being a military case] would probably fail to dissuade all but the most timid jihadist, it would send a signal not only to the Continent, but to citizens of West that we will not surrender to Islamic expansionism.
With the entire civilized world under siege, such a move would be more than symbolic. It could not help but provide a much needed shot of confidence to the rapidly flagging spirit of those attempting defend the edifice from which freedom and liberty flows.
©2016 PipeLineNews.org LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
http://www.pipelinenews.org/2016/sep/08/how-to-lose-a-civilization-5-year-sentence-for-uk-isis.html
Also see:
How Anjem Choudary swore allegiance to Islamic State after curry house meeting
After 20 years of avoiding serious prosecution, Anjem Choudary was finally bought down after pledging allegiance to Islamic State following a curry house meeting with his associates in East London. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/06/how-anjem-choudary-swore-allegiance-to-islamic-state-after-curry/
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